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From Phnom Penh we take a well travelled route North to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor and its surrounds.

Getting there is fun... with the obligatory piss up the night before at Heart of Darkness, we are not overly active in the morning. Our Moto drivers pick us up at 6.30 and we whizz up to the ferry terminal, barge our way past the mass of trinket, bread and drink sellers and pile onto a thirty foot long boat.

Our bags are stowed below decks, we sit on the roof. The sun, low and red, begins to intensify in heat as we await the off. Meanwhile, more and more bags, and more and more people are clambering aboard - the circus of sellers going into a frenzy every time another bleary eyed traveller apears.

At seven, we slip anchor and head north. The ride is smooth, if a little noisy, and the breeze developed by our movement is welcomed by all. We slap on sunscreen and catch a few Z's.

We meet a goateed American chap who gives us the low down on our next country - Vietnam. He describes some of the sights we can expect, including some intriguing tunnels in the centre which housed seven hundred during the Vietnam war.

The river winds North, past fishing villages large and small. Isobel tells me that last time she did this trip she saw smoke coming from a lone fisherman and heard a loud crack shortly after... turning to a Cambodian sitting near her, she asks what the sound/smoke were: "Oh, the fishermen do not like the fast boats disturbing the water as they pass - so they occasionally shoot at the boat". I keep my eyes peeled and lie low.

Arriving at Siem Reap 'Harbour', we are intercepted by two boats - one with armed police aboard. Thoughts of strip searches or worse spring to mind but, after a brief but heated exchange with the driver, we are merely made to cut the engine and get towed in by a ridiculously underpowered tug.

We enter a floating village run  by Vietnamese. The sights and sounds are amazing - kids rowing to school, fishermen with hand nets popping up from the mucky depths and boat houses made of flotsam filled with smiling families cooking or peeling freshly caught fish. The smell of fish paste is pervasive. The reason for the tug now becomes clear - the waters have become so low that the turns are now extremely tight - requiring the tug to pull at right angles.

We eventually dock, and disembark over a diesel blackened slime pool on a rickety plank at the end of which is a sea of faces all crying 'Moto' 'Taxi' 'follow me sir' - they swarm us. One of them holds up a car key and proclaims "I have a car" - we choose him, finding out shortly after that virtually everyone else is merely 'introducing' a taxi driver - and demanding a fee for this 'service'.

The road out a joke - we sit in the back seat and, as we head over a few nasty potholes, I feel the floor-pan of the car not only scraping, but rising as a rock intrudes underneath! It takes an hour to rattle into town - an hour I won't forget in a hurry.

But this is not the worst journey - oh no... the best is yet to come...

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